Scaleforum 2009 - Llanastr - Rodney Hall
Llanastr is a small industrial town at the head of the Rhymni Fach valley on the northern rim of the South Wales coalfield. Its station was the terminus of a branch which diverged from the Brecon and Merthyr line between Newport and Rhymney just north of New Tredegar.
The period depicted is a winter just before the outbreak of war in 1914 when the coal industry was at its peak and frequent coal trains can been seen reversing in the station on their journey from pit to port. The town also enjoys a regular service of passenger trains both direct to Newport and to connect with Newport to Brecon trains at Pengam (Mon.).
The model represents half of the station the remainder is imagined to be beyond the road bridge. This subterfuge was intended
to enable quite a lot of railway to be put in quite a small space without giving too cramped an air to the layout.
The structures are based on prototypes alongside the B&M at Rhiwderin, Machen and Rhymney. The layout was built some twenty five years ago to fit in a small shared flat and was featured in the Model Railway Journal Nos. 2 and 4.
Somehow Llanastr has escaped the attentions of cartographers from John Speede through the Railway Clearing House and even now eludes the satellite mapping techniques of the Ordnance Survey and Google Earth.
